Happy Hour Headlines: Gus’ BF in the clutch and Russia’s Ire at Ireland

Happy Hour Headlines is our regular briefing on what you’ll be dishing about this week.

Matt at Bat

Scoot over, Gus Kenworthy: Boyfriend Matt Wilkas is launching a new YouTube web series. Titled Matt & Dan, the show is a collaboration with (as Wilkas describes him) “the insanely funny Daniel Vincent Gordh. Watch our trailer, subscribe and stay tuned for our first episode next Wednesday.” That’s March 21, for those of you already scrolling to your SmartPhone calendars.

Matt made international headlines with Gus less than a month ago at the Winter Olympics just for being the guy at the other end of Gus’ brief liplock. But the actor has a respectable track record of his own, having appeared on Broadway in Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark and a film short called Gayby (later remade at feature length). He’s also found work on the short-lived HBO series Looking and Eastsiders.

We’re looking forward to seeing more of him. Make of that what you will.

From Russia, No Love

Notorious homophobes that they are, the government of Russia is considering whether to air an entry to the Eurovision Song Contest from Ireland because it features (gasp) a same-sex couple in the accompanying video. Russian officials are weighing whether or not to screen the Emerald Island entry (who must still qualify for the Portuguese hurdle of the international competition), since in their collective opinion, the video “breaches the country’s laws banning gay propaganda.”

The submission, a song called Together, is from filmmaker Ryan O’Shaughnessy and is augmented by video which features a gay couple daring to walk the streets of Dublin and engaging in a momentary pas de deux. Of course, we love the romance of the piece — and O’Shaughnessy’s defiant tweets taunting the Russians; in effect daring them to ban it. His conclusion: The Russians are engaging in “anti-gay propaganda.”

You Can’t Kill It

The brouhaha between RuPaul tan he trans community continues. Now trans scenemaker Amanda Lepore is weighing into the fray — suggesting that at this point, the controversy over whether only cis men should be allowed to compete on RuPaul’s Drag Race is really a free-for-all brawl.

Lepore tells Gay Star News in a new interview that her respect for Ru remains unaffected. “It’s her show,” adds the performer, who is transexual as well. “So, you can do that. But I do think there should be a spin-off or something, [for] bio girls and trans girls.”

For anyone who’s been off the grid for the last two weeks, the controversy erupted when Ru told The Guardian, “”Drag loses its sense of danger and its sense of irony once it’s not men doing it, because at its core it’s a social statement and a big f-you to male-dominated culture. So for men to do it, it’s really punk rock, because it’s a real rejection of masculinity.”

Season 9 runner-up Miss Peppermint, who announced her transition to the cast during her competition, chose to disagree.

But Lepore is taking something of a middle road on the issue, saying that she sees Ru’s side. “I mean, it is different,” she told the news outlet, “and you get ready a little differently, so I understand RuPaul.”

And she concluded by saying that she didn’t think Ru meant any disrespect. Gay Star News quotes Lepore as saying “I don’t think RuPaul meant it as a put-down. I think RuPaul meant it as he considers them women, and that it wouldn’t be fair to have a woman compete because they’d have an advantage.”

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